At Those Terrifying Frontiers Where The Existence And Disappearance Of People Fade Into Each Other
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme work together across a range of sound, image, text, installation and performance practices. Their practice is engaged in the intersections between performativity, political imaginaries, the body and virtuality. Across their works they probe a contemporary landscape marked by seemingly perpetual crisis and an endless âpresentâ, one that is shaped by a politics of desire and disaster.
They have been developing a body of work that questions this suspension of the present and searches for ways in which an altogether different imaginary and language can emerge that is not bound within colonial/capitalist narrative and discourse. In their projects, they find themselves excavating, activating and inventing incidental narratives, figures, gestures and sites as material for re-imagining the possibilities of the present. Often reflecting on ideas of non-linearity in the form of returns, amnesia and deja vu, and in the process unfolding the slippages between actuality and projection (virtuality, myth, wish), what is and what could be.
Largely their approach has been one of sampling materials both existing and self-authored in the form of sound, image, text, objects and recasting them into altogether new âscriptsâ. The result is a practice that investigates the political, visceral, material possibilities of sound, image, text and site, taking on the form of multimedia installations and live sound/image performances.
⢠The exhibition is on view until 15 February.
⢠All photo documentation by Marco Berardi & Baiba Sprance, 2026, from the opening night.
⢠More information about the exhibition, artists and access via our website or link in bio.
⢠With special thanks to not/nowhere, Whitechapel Gallery and Surplus Sounds for technical support!
Image descriptions in Alt Text.
@ruanne.ar
@basel.abb
@aceagrams
@minekaplangi
@benjaminsebastian
@fraxin_us
@jmschofield
@marco____berardi
@enclaveprojects
@tamysammakko
@ateliercomms
@not.nowhere
@whitechapelgallery
@surplus_sounds